


This Charming Man

by Lothiriel84



Series: And after all this time [3]
Category: MarsCorp (Podcast)
Genre: Foreshadowing, Gen, Hangover, I Don't Even Know, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Underage, Mild Language, Pre-Canon, Underage Drinking, creepy old men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 05:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15429543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lothiriel84/pseuds/Lothiriel84
Summary: This man said, "It's gruesomeThat someone so handsome should care"





	This Charming Man

“Are you all right, Mr Denham?”

He clutched onto the edge of the toilet bowl, still retching helplessly in spite of the handful of pills he had swallowed earlier. Shareholders, but he hadn’t felt this hungover in ages – not since his first night out without his parents when he was barely a teenager, in point of fact.

Sure thing, it had all been worth it, if only for the night of debauchery that had followed; Lawrence Chamberlain and Mr Kingsley had been set on outdoing one another, which had led to a messy threeway on Jonathan’s impressively sturdy throne chair. The only downside was that the mix of extravagant cocktails and UltraAde vodka hadn’t seemed to sit well with Colin’s upset stomach, and to make matters worse he had completely forgotten he’d promised his young new friend to show him some interesting data points concerning sugarcane crops growth in correlation with the percentage of carbon dioxide in the artificial atmosphere.

“I told you he wouldn’t be able to keep upright after one of Dad’s parties, never mind talk to you about science stuff.”

Oh, fantastic – little Miss Resting Bitch Face was there too; and why wouldn’t she be, considering how she had been standing right next to the two of them when David asked him in the first place? Well, time to step out of the loo and face his ill-timed visitors, anyway.

He rinsed his mouth, and chugged another glass of water for good measure. His own reflection glared back mockingly at him from the shaving mirror; he looked every bit as awful as he felt, but thankfully little David was too guileless to notice either way – though he wasn’t holding much hope that it would go down unnoticed with Angelica.

“Hello there, my young friends,” he greeted them as genially as he could manage under the circumstances, locking the bathroom door behind him to cover up the mess he’d left in there. “Sorry I had to keep you waiting, I fear a stomach bug of some kind has caught up with me.”

Angelica Kingsley snorted quite audibly, clearly unimpressed by his half-baked attempt to pass off his hangover as something else. The little witch was just as perceptive as her own father, even in spite of her young age and her lack of first-hand experience with any depravity of the grown-up persuasion.

“Oh,” David uttered softly, his baby face scrunched up in a complicated combination of concern and disappointment. Dash it all, but he wasn’t going to let the kid down, no matter if he had to drag himself all the way to the sugarcane fields on his hands and knees; as fun as his night-time activities had proved to be, he was finding that they didn’t quite compare to being looked up to the way this slip of a child looked up to him.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry,” he smiled down at him, ruffling his unruly mop of hair for good measure. “I’ll be as right as rain in no time at all. In the meantime, why don’t we sit down and watch another of those old MarsCorp promotional videos from the Culture Department?”

He could swear he was going to be able to power the entire base with the brightness of the boy’s smile one day. For her part, Angelica merely rolled her eyes, making it abundantly clear that she was only willing to tolerate it for David’s sake, but she most definitely was not going to enjoy it; Colin made a mental note to reward her later, and ushered them both towards the television set.


End file.
